Some Bears Were Better By Year's End
Bears GM Ryan Poles painted a picutre of an ascending team, yet they discarded almost half the coaching staff.
They looked at the 5-3 record in the second half of the season and saw great improvement. This can't be denied.
"If you really back and really look at the starting point and then look at where we are today, you can't tell me you don't see the difference," Poles said. "We're making strong progress. We're doing it the right way."
Some players did it faster and in greater amounts than others in 2023.
Here are the Bears who made the greatest step up since the start of 2023. Whether it continues might be up to the coaching changes they make, but the numbers all add up to being better players at season's end than at the beginning.
1. CB Jaylon Johnson
Besides four of his five career interceptions coming in the 2023 season, Johnson clamped down on receivers with career bests in completion percentage allowed (55.2%, 32 of 58) and passer rating allowed when targeted (50.9). He had 10 pass defenses, most since his rookie year when he was tested greatly. The highest graded cornerback in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus. They had never given him an overall mark higher than 64.2 and that was in 2021, but he had a 90.8 in the 2023 season. Now they have to pay the price for his improvement. The Bears will look pretty silly if they don't, but they always have the franchise tag available if they have problems.
2. CB Tyrique Stevenson
Their starter on the defense's left side epitomized in-season improvement. Talk about finishing with a fury, his passer rating against in the first quarter of the season hovered up in the 140s. By season's end, Stevenson started making plays on the ball and dropped it all the way to a respectable 93.7, according to Sportradar. His completion percentage allowed had been in the high 70s and dropped all the way to 60.3% (70 of 116), although he was given blame for nine touchdown passes allowed. This had a great impact on the Bears ranking next to last in red zone defense on the year. He made five pass defenses in his first nine games, then had 11 over the last seven games. All four of his interceptions came in his final six games.
3. CB Kyler Gordon
Their slot cornerback made huge strides after being allowed to focus solely on the covering the slot receivers. Last year he played outside in the base package and then moved inside on passing downs. His PFF coverage grade skyrocketed from sub-par 46.4 as a rookie to 68.2 in 2023, and overall from 49.8 to 65.6. Both of his interceptions came in the final six games, as he gained momentum while the season prorgressed. Sportradar tracked his passer rating against at 93.9, an eight-point improvement over 2022. It's not surprising he and most of the secondary had their greatest improvement in the second half of the season because they benefited from the pass rush of Montez Sweat after the trade. Especially at slot cornerback, the pass rush pressure is big because receivers in the slot can get open in any direction. It's not an easy position to play.
4. QB Justin Fields
It wasn't the breakthrough causing everyone to stand up and say he has arrived. There were various areas of small improvement, like his passer rating went up from 85.2 to 86.3 because he stopped throwing as many interceptiosns at season's end and dropped his interception percentage significantly to 2.4% from 3.5%. This, alone, was enough to show all he's not being so careless. The decline in his rushing total wasn't as signfiicant as his drop in yards per pass attempt from 7.1 to 6.9. His strength is throwing deeper but he's not getting the benefits, which might say something for why offensive coordinator Luke Getsy was fired. Fields showed improvement like the Bears insisted, but it's disturbing how he had only two games with more than one touchdown pass and they came back to back in Week 4 and Week 5 when they played Denver and Washington. Then he never was able to do it again.
5. Kicker Cairo Santos
There was always this undercurrent of thought that Santos was good but was only a high-percentage guy with a weaker leg. On social media, plenty of Bears fans look down on his leg strength as compared with former kicker Robbie Gould. However, Santos improved his accuracy in 2023 to 90.4% as a Bears kicker by hitting 92.3%, and at the same time made 7-of-8 field goals from 50 yards or longer. Gould's best was seven, as well, but he missed twice then. Gould made more than four field goals only twice in his career and both were with the Bears. He also cut down his problem with missing extra points.
6. LT Braxton Jones
Jones allowed two sacks on 400 pass blocking opportunities in 2023, a much better percentage than the seven sacks in 510 he allowed in his rookie year. It was pass blocking where he struggled most as a rookie. The pressure percentage was about the same at 0.8 in 2023 as opposed to .78 last year. Overall, PFF gave Jones a slightly better pass-blocking grade than last year although he dropped in relation to the other tackles in the league. What met the eye test was his ability to avoid getting beat on bull rushes all of the time like happened last year. He can credit working with Olin Kreutz and in the weight room for this.
7. LB Tremaine Edmunds
All four of Edmunds interceptions came in his final nine games and three of those after the acquisition of Montez Sweat helped supply more pass pressure. It took Edmunds time to make more impactful plays, almost half a season, as he learned the complex role of middle linebacker in the Eberflus system. But this shouldn't be surprising because he had very little training camp practice time due to injuries. His big bonus and salary made improvement imperative. His finish gives hope that he can play at a future level comparable to linebacker TJ Edwards, who excelled from the day he walked onto the field in OTAs.
8. DT Justin Jones
PFF doesn't think much of the efforts of Matt Eberflus' three technique and if you looked at only his tackles for loss, then he actually declined a bit with 10 after getting 12 in 2022. His improvement wasn't necessarily from one section of the season until the end but over the course of the entire year compared to last year. Jones had pressures, according to Sportradar. Last year they had him at nine. His 4 1/2 sacks were a career high. Some credit must go to nose tackle Andrew Billings, for helping get double-teams away from him. But Jones improved over his first season and now they have to determine whether there is someone better they can bring in at the three technique, whether Gervon Dexter has progressed enough in a year to take over the role or continue working Jones in this capacity.
9. RB Roschon Johnson
His season was divided into two parts. There was the pre-concussion and post-concussion. Johnson went out Oct. 5 against Washington with a concussion in the 40-20 Bears win. To that point, he'd been very impressive, averaging 4.9 yards per carry with 122 yards on 25 attempts in spot duty. When he returned, he finished the season with 220 yards on 56 carries fo 3.9 yards a carry. However, he did gradually improve and in the last five games reached 4.4 yards a carry again. It's possible he'll get split backfield duty next season, although everything is uncertain in that regard because of the offensive coordinator situation.
10. DT Gervon Dexter Sr.
Coaches said he progressed all along but it didn't really start to show on the field until the last five games. He was in on four sacks, making 2 1/2 total, and they came in the final five games. Dexter made 11 pressures in the last eight games after six in the first nine games, according to Sportradar. He learned all the line positions in the pass rush rotation and finished with 20 total tackles.
11. CB Terell Smith
It's difficullt to say he improved greatly, but he was at a high level for a rookie throughout the season. The Bears coaches like him enough that they had a hard time choosing between Tyrique Stevenson and Smith earlier. He was consistently solid in technique and had a 93.7 passer rating against with 12 games and four starts. He missed only 5.8% of tackle attempts, which immediately won the favor of Eberflus.
12. S Jaquan Brisker
You'll not find much in his season statistically to indicate improvement over his rookie year. In fact, some raw numbers say he declined. It's more a case of hearing what coaches and teammates say about his impact as a leader in the secondary. Brisker's passer rating against when targeted was 110.6, 12 points worse than in his rookie season. This was according to Sportradar. He gave up two more touchdown passes (six) than last year and a higher completion percentage (61.7%) than last year (56.3%). Eberflus saw his improvment coming especially once Eddie Jackson returned from injury, improving overall communication in the back.
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